Regeneration: the inner city in context

This chapter (12) reviews key publications by Sir Peter Hall in the period 1967-79. In this period he was particularly interested in the 'inner city' and how problems of deprivation, unemployment, poor housing, and increasingly immigration might best be addressed by public policy. Each chapter in the book reviews Sir Peter's publications over a long and distinguished career in research and policy advice to government in honour of his 80th birthday in 2013.

The costs of urban growth at the fringe of a Chinese city: evidence from Jinshi Village in Suzhou

The rate of city growth in China today correlates well with an overall loss of the most fertile agricultural areas of the country. A consequence of this growth includes the rapid reshaping of peri-urban livelihoods in their densely populated fringe. The policy response from central government has focused on containing city growth and pursuing modern rural development. Both policy directions have failed, in part, to acknowledge the intrinsic nature of the urban fringe in China. This paper explores the features of the fringe of Suzhou, a fast growing city in the Yangtze River Delta. The aim is to outline potential social costs of this current policy framework, through analysing the case study of Jinshi Village. The paper advocates a different regionalist approach to policy implementation.

Climate change adaptation planning under uncertainty in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: a case study on institutional vulnerability, adaptive capacity and climate change governance

Climate change is expected to have wide-ranging impacts on urban areas and creates additional challenges for sustainable development. Urban areas are inextricably linked with climate change, as they are major contributors to it, while also being particularly vulnerable to its impacts. Climate change presents a new challenge to urban areas, not only because of the expected rises in temperature and sea-level, but also the current context of failure to fully address the institutional barriers preventing action to prepare for climate change, or feedbacks between urban systems and agents. Despite the importance of climate change, there are few cities in developing countries that are attempting to address these issues systematically as part of their governance and planning processes. While there is a growing literature on the risks and vulnerabilities related to climate change, as yet there is limited research on the development of institutional responses, the dissemination of relevant knowledge and evaluation of tools for practical planning responses by decision makers at the city level. This thesis questions the dominant assumptions about the capacity of institutions and potential of adaptive planning. It argues that achieving a balance between climate change impacts and local government decision-making capacity is a vital for successful adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Urban spatial planning and wider environmental planning not only play a major role in reducing/mitigating risks but also have a key role in adapting to uncertainty in over future risk. The research focuses on a single province - the biggest city in Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City - as the principal case study to explore this argument, by examining the linkages between urban planning systems, the structures of governance, and climate change adaptation planning. In conclusion it proposes a specific framework to offer insights into some of the more practical considerations, and the approach emphasises the importance of vertical and horizontal coordination in governance and urban planning.

Fieldworks from the Museum of the Void: Experiments in the Event of an Archive

This exhibition was a research presentation of works made at Center for Land Use Interpretation [CLUI]base in Wendover, Utah, USA between 2008-2010. The project was commissioned by the Centre For Land Interpretation in USA and funded by The Henry Moore Foundation in the UK. Documentation of research conducted in the field as made available as video and installation. An experimental discourse on the preservation of land art was put with GPS drawings and research information displayed as maps and documents. In examining physical sites in Utah, USA, the project connected to contemporary discourse centred on archives in relation to land art and land use. Using experimental processes conceived in relation to key concepts such as event structures and entropy, conceptual frameworks developed by Robert Smithson (USA) and John Latham (UK), the 'death drive' of the archive was examined in the context of a cultural impulse to preserve iconic works. The work took items from Lathams archive and placed them at the canonical 'Spiral Jetty', Smithson land art work at Rozel Point north of Salt Lake City. This became a focus for the project that also highlighted the role of the Getty Foundation in documenting major public artworks and CLUI in creating an American Land Museum. Work was created in the field at extreme remote locations using GPS technologies and visual tools were developed to articulate the concepts of the artists discussed, to engage the exhibition audience in ideas of transformation and entropy in art. Audiences were encouraged to sign a petition to be used in future preservation of spiral jetty currently facing development challenges.

A ‘right to have rights’ in the EU public sphere? An Arendtian justification for the application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

This paper discusses the Court’s reasoning in interpreting the EU Charter, using recent case law on horizontal effect as a case study. It identifies two possible means of interpreting the provisions of the Charter: firstly, an approach based on common values (e.g. equality or solidarity) and, secondly, an approach based on access to the public sphere. It argues in favour of the latter. Whereas an approach based on common values is more consonant with the development of the case law so far, it is conceptually problematic: it involves subjective assessments of the importance and degree of ‘sharedness’ of the value in question, which can undermine the equal constitutional status of different Charter provisions. Furthermore, it marginalises the Charter’s overall politically constructional character, which distinguishes it from other sources of rights protection listed in Art 6 TEU. The paper argues that, as the Charter’s provisions concretise the notion of political status in the EU, they have a primarily constitutional, rather than ethical, basis. Interpreting the Charter based on the very commitment to a process of sharing, drawing on Hannah Arendt’s idea of the ‘right to have rights’ (a right to access a political community on equal terms), is therefore preferable. This approach retains the pluralistic, post-national fabric of the EU polity, as it accommodates multiple narratives about its underlying values, while also having an inclusionary impact on previously underrepresented groups (e.g. non-market-active citizens or the sans-papiers) by recognising their equal political disposition.

e-poltergeist

E-poltergeist takes over the user’s internet browser, automatically initiating Web searches without their permission. Web-based artwork which explores issues of user control when confronted with complex technological systems, questioning the limits of digital interactive arts as consensual reciprocal systems. e-poltergeist was a major web commission that marked an early stage of research in a larger enquiry by Craighead and Thomson into the relationship between live virtual data, global communications networks and instruction-based art, exploring how such systems can be re-contextualised within gallery environments. e-poltergeist presented the 'viewer' with a singular narrative by using live internet search-engine data that aimed to create a perpetual and virtually unstoppable cycle of search engine results, banner ads and moving windows as an interruption into the normal use of an internet browser. The work also addressed the ‘de-personalisation’ of internet use by sending a series of messages from the live search engine data that seemed to address the user directly: 'Is anyone there?'; 'Can anyone hear me?', 'Please help me!'; 'Nobody cares!' e-poltergeist makes a significant contribution to the taxonomy of new media art by dealing with the way that new media art can re-address notions of existing traditions in art such as appropriation and manipulation, instruction-based art and conceptual art. e-poltergeist was commissioned ($12,000) for 010101: Art in Technological Times, a landmark international exhibition presented by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which bought together leading international practitioners working with emergent technologies, including Tatsuo Miyajima, Janet Cardiff, Brian Eno. Peer recognition of the project in the form of reviews include: Curating New Media. Gateshead: Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Cook, Sarah, Beryl Graham and Sarah Martin ISBN: 1093655064; The Wire; http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2000/12/40464 (review by Reena Jana); Leonardo (review Barbara Lee Williams and Sonya Rapoport) http://www.leonardo.info/reviews/feb2001/ex_010101_willrapop.html All the work is developed jointly and equally between Craighead and her collaborator, Jon Thomson, Slade School of Fine Art.

Tourism policy making: the policymakers' perspectives

This research explores tourism policy making, from the perspectives of policy makers using grounded theory. It focuses on Leeds, a city in the North of England, which is characterized by its turbulent environment. The paper identifies themes around policy making, including low status, lack of clarity, uncertainty, lack of consensus and congruence and complexity. Its findings indicate policy making is essentially a social process, involving communication and negotiation between people in the context of wider change. It suggests a social conceptualization, and further research to investigate the communications involved in producing policy rather than the current research focus on the tangible outputs of the process such as a plan or a physical development.